drew's blog

The newest release of Cernunnos -- version 1.1.0 -- is here.

Those of you who have read my previous blogs probably know that I've been working on an open source Java project called Cernunnos for some time now (okay -- in this case "some time" is a bit over two years). I'm happy to report that yesterday The Cernunnos Project announced its first release: version 1.0.0.

Here's something you really should know if you use the MS SQL Server database platform and you're considering an upgrade to uPortal 3: you will need to enable the ALLOW_SNAPSHOT_ISOLATION and READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT options in your portal database. If you don't enable them, you'll encounter a nasty issue in the area of portlet preferences.

Over the past few months, I've had the pleasure, once again, of working with Johns Hopkins University on their uPortal system. This effort reinforced my earlier conclusions about the folks at JHU: talented people with great attitudes.

A couple weeks ago (March 17 - 21), I spent a very satisfying and productive week working at Johns Hopkins University.

I'm currently developing a portlet for the University of Colorado System that allows users to access and manipulate records in PeopleSoft.

We know that the surfaces of the Earth change slowly over time. Tectonic plates shift, creating mountains; volcanic activity creates new islands and makes existing islands larger. Geomorphology is the study these processes: how landforms come in to being, evolve, or disappear.

Last night I was furiously googling for the name of the ancient device that models the geocentric view of the universe. It's cleverly composed of gears and concentric spheres -- with the Earth at the center -- that mechanically represent the motion of heavenly bodies as they pass through the sky.

Over the past few days I have learned a lot about (and struggled mightily with) custom URL protocol handlers in Java.